Ask, seek, knock — Perseverance in prayer

Matthew 7:7-8 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”

Over and over again God tells us through the Bible that He hears and answers our prayers. Why then do we often give up so easily when there is something our heart desires? Maybe God wants to see how much we really want the request. Maybe the delay in the answers is to teach us the art of perseverance. Whatever the case God instructs us to pray without ceasing. Ask, seek and knock continually. This is the way to have our prayers answered.

It has been a few weeks since we got our puppy, Apache. She is such a sweet little girl but there are the typical puppy nuisances that we have to deal with. Potty training has been exhausting and the chewing on anything and everything has caused us all to be very persistent in teaching her what we expect. We are determined not to give up because we are sure she can learn and because we don’t want to end up with huge problems. Why can we stay so on task with our puppy training and yet give up so easily when it comes to prayer?

The great preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon once preached a sermon to his congregation where he challenged them with these words, “When you know what you need, your soul must become so possessed with the value of that device – with your own excessive need for it, with the danger which you will be in unless that device should not be granted – that you will be compelled to plead for it as a man pleads for his life! … We must have such a desire for the thing we need, that we will not rise until we have it – but in submission to His divine will, nevertheless. Feeling that the thing we ask for cannot be wrong, and He, Himself, has promised it, we have resolved it must be given, and if not given, we will plead the promise again and again, till heaven’s gates shall shake before our pleas shall cease!”

When we understand God’s heart for us and believe His promises to answer our cries we should continue on day after day seeking what we long for. Are you discouraged because you have prayed for something for many years without any viable answers? Don’t give up. Persistently lay your specific requests out before Him and believe that as you seek Him He will give you the desires of your heart. Nothing is too hard for Him and He delights to show us great and mighty things that are beyond our imagination.